cloistered away in Bozeman

A view of the Montana mountains - shot using my Blackberry.
Copyright (c) 2009 Wendee Holtcamp

Time is flying by, but fortunately I've made some good progress on my book! I've edited the first four chapters, and gotten a substantial amount of the next one written - Land of the Lost - which is about creationism. In it I talk about my visit to the Creation Evidence Museum which I visited in late October 2008 - See my old blog post from then, Land of the Lost.

I have literally been in my yummy black fleece North Face sweatpants and t-shirts, no makeup, for the past week. I write in different corners of the house... downstairs I have a gas fireplace that is toasty warm and a couch, a round table with comfy stools, an office with a desk, and then my bed (where I'm at now). I write upstairs on the couch watching the snow fall as I did today... it was really coming down today! We got like 8 inches of snow!! The other day it snowed, then that all melted and it was sunny but cool. Then it snowed again starting last night through today. It's so pretty! I haven't really been out in it though.

The other day, I walked to the Bozeman Community Food Co-op which is 4 blocks from Elissa's house - we sooo need one of these in my community! I seriously have thought about opening one... then again I have way too many ideas for my own good sometimes! Anyway, I worked a bit upstairs at their coffee shop which has wifi. The view of the mountains is awesome - see the picture below. I took Elissa to the doc, and saw another beautiful view, the pic above is from the doc's office window. All these are just from my Blackberry. I need to upload some of my pics from my better camera but haven't yet. Last night they had some friends over to watch the Steelers-Chargers football game and I helped Elissa make a Thai food feast!

Other than writing, the only plans we have so far are to go see The Cove - a documentary about the dolphin slaughter in Japan - on Thursday at the Bozeman Film Festival - which is really just alternative movies playing at a local theater... and then we're talking about taking a couple days the following week to go to Chico Hot Springs, Yellowstone, and staying in Cooke City near the northeast park entrance. It's apparently a great time of year to see wildlife because the snows will have started bringing them into the valleys, and they're trying to fatten up in prep for the long winter. I will also probably let Elissa take me up in her Cessna and fly me over Yellowstone some other day too. She's been a pilot for a while. Here are a couple more pics. Now I'm back to writing!

The view out the back porch today with all the snow that has come down! It will probably melt soon though.

A view of the mountains from the upstairs coffee shop at the Bozeman Community Food Co-op.

the next adventure

Laurie & I before our hike up Guadalupe Mt, the tallest peak in Texas. You should've seen the self-portraits we took afterwards, we look awful! They are such a riot but I'm not posting them here! Ha!
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I've been totally snowed under with work, still trying to get caught up after Hurricane Ike pushed all my work back a couple weeks. I am getting very excited about my upcoming camping trip this weekend! I am going to camp at Cleburne State Park with my friend Laurie (above) and we will visit the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose as part of research for my book (Losing My Religion: Making peace between evolution and Christianity, Beacon Press).

Basically the guy who runs the museum, Carl Baugh, believes that dinosaurs walked the earth with humankind. Yep just like the Flintsones. And Noah had dinosaurs on board the Ark - less than 4,000 years ago. So obviously, I don't agree with what he espouses, since science shows the earth to be over 4.5 billion years old, dinosaurs to have gone extinct around 65 million years ago and modern humans (Homo sapiens) to have arisen in Africa around 200,000 years ago. But I'm curious to know why he believes what he does. Why do any of us believe what we do? How do we know if we're right or wrong? That is what my book is about. As a fellow Christian, what does he think of my acceptance of evolution? (I know from some of his writing he says there's no evidence, which of course is ridiculous - there are hundreds of thousands of studies of published articles including genetics research, natural history research, paleontology, archaeology, embryology, physiology, etc that all point to natural selection and evolution and the common descent of all living organisms). I've long ago made peace with my faith and science, but it will be interesting to talk to those who think differently.

So besides camping, campfires, and S'mores Laurie and I will visit the museum, I'll interview Carl, and we'll explore some other sights in the Granbury-Cleburne-Glen Rose area (southwest of Ft. Worth). I also plan to visit Dinosaur Valley State Park, which I've been to before a couple times, but it has some of the best preserved dinosaur tracks in the world! Some of them are in the shallow clear blue Paluxy River. I hope the water level is low so I can see the prints well.

It's going to probably be cold this weekend so I'm glad I have a very warm sleeping bag!!! But hey after camping in Nepal where I literally slept in about 5 layers of clothes, my fleece beanie, and my awesome North face down sleeping bag, I can handle it!!